“The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in
1928… and preached that governments should be ruled by Islamic law, or sharia…
They were organized into tiers of membership, with some forming a covert
military wing…”
“Another Brotherhood leader, Sayyid Qutb... advocated militant jihad against nonbelievers and revolution against impure
Muslim states… Qutb's books would later provide the philosophical underpinning
for jihadists such as bin Laden...”
“Because the Brotherhood is a secret
society, its precise links around the world are hard to determine,
U.S. officials said…”
“A senior U.S. law enforcement official
said… "We are very interested in relations among people and entities,"… "People
know each other for 20 years and will do anything for them because they are all
'brothers.'”
Link
The article's use of the word ‘brothers’
in quotation marks was intriguing. Recalling Daniel Hopsicker’s exclusive
interview with the girlfriend of Mohamed Atta, she mentioned that Atta used the
term ‘brother’ only when addressing certain people.
From the book ‘Welcome
to Terrorland’ by Daniel Hopsicker, page 332:
“He called certain people, Arabic
people, ‘my brother,’ Amanda [Atta’s American girlfriend] said. “… But not all
Arabs, so it wasn’t like anyone who was a Muslim was his brother.”
Link
Though a common expression, this fact
begs the question of whether Atta was a member of the Brotherhood.
But surely the Bush Administration would
not ally itself in the war on terror with a group to which Mohamed Atta, the
catalyst of the war on terror, belonged.
After
all, the 9-11 Report has stated that Atta was radicalized by al-Qaeda during his
time in Hamburg in the late 1990s. It added Atta was a reserved young man,
raised with little religious background by a father who was a practicing
attorney.
Apparently, neither the Bush
Administration nor the 9-11 Commission came across the following reports which
shed some light on America’s potential partners in the war on terror.
From the BBC, December 12, 2001 by
reporter Jane Corbin:
“But Mohamed Atta's father had
sympathies with a militant Islamic organisation opposed to the
government. This was the political background against which his son grew up.
The father's views haven't changed to this day.”
Link
More from BBC reporter Jane Corbin,
National Public Radio September 5, 2002:
“But it's interesting because in
speaking to him [Atta’s father], we discovered that, really, many of the ideas
that his son perhaps represented in a more extreme form had their origin in
his father, who was a member of an underground Muslim grouping, the
Muslim Brotherhood, which certainly some decades ago was a proscribed
organization. And, you know, Atta Sr. had some very strong feelings about
America as well. And I think you would see where some of the ideas that affected
his son, Mohamed Atta, came from.”
Link
The apple does not fall far from the
tree, as reported by The Observer (UK) September 23, 2001:
“Atta
made no secret of where his sympathies lay. He had graduated from a faculty that
was a hotbed of fundamentalist agitation and gone on to join the Engineers
Syndicate, one of three professional associations controlled by the Muslim
Brotherhood.”
Link
From The Washington Post September 23,
2001:
“In 1985, Atta entered the architecture
school in the engineering department at Cairo University… In 1990, after
finishing his studies in architecture, Atta joined what is called an
"engineering syndicate," a professional or trade group. Like the school that
trained many of its engineers, the syndicate was an unofficial base for the
Muslim Brotherhood, where it recruited and propagated its ideas, including
the demonization of the United States.”
Link
And the press’s third and final mention
of Atta’s membership in the Brotherhood, from the December 31st, 2001
issue of Newsweek:
“The clues reach back at least to the
early 1990s, when Atta came under the spell of the Muslim Brotherhood…”
Link
Yes, Mohamed Atta was raised by a member
of the Muslim Brotherhood and himself became a member in 1990. This life-long
connection between Atta and the Brotherhood is sure to raise questions regarding
the current policies of Bush Administration officials.
As is a quick look at the history of the
Muslim Brotherhood and the World Trade Center:
Beginning in the early 1990s, as
reported in The Houston Chronicle, March 12, 1993:
“The funds wired over recent months into
the… bank account of two arrested suspects in the World Trade Center bombing
have been traced to Germany, law enforcement officials said Thursday.”
“Germany has one of the largest Islamic
communities in Europe and has been used by an array of Middle East terrorist
organizations as a base of operations, intelligence experts say… Germany, which
has more than 2 million Muslims in a population of 80 million, has long been a
hotbed of Islamic and radical Arab activity.”
“The largest Islamic center in Germany…
has traditionally been dominated by Syrian members of the Muslim Brotherhood…”
“The Egyptian branch of the Muslim
Brotherhood… has been active in Germany since they sought refuge from the fierce
repression in the 1950s...”
Link
Newsweek April 23, 2003:
“Investigators in the United States and
Hamburg, Germany, tell NEWSWEEK they believe that exiled members of the Syrian
Muslim Brotherhood played critical roles in supporting and recruiting the
Hamburg-based leaders of the Al Qaeda cells that carried out the 9-11 attacks.
One suspected figure in that nexus is alleged Syrian Muslim Brotherhood
member… Mohammed Haidar Zammar. German and U.S. investigators believe the
300-pound Zammar helped arrange for Mohammed Atta and other future 9-11
terrorists to attend Al Qaeda terrorist training camps in Afghanistan--and that
the 9-11 plot was hatched while the Hamburg suspects were in the camps."
Link
From The Chicago Tribune March 9, 2003:
“Darkazanli,
44… is identified by intelligence officials in Hamburg as a longtime member of
the Syrian wing of the ultra-radical Muslim Brotherhood…”
“Darkazanli nevertheless has a history
of associations with high-level Al Qaeda figures going back at least to 1993,
the year he told police he first met Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, described by U.S.
prosecutors as a "founding member" of Al Qaeda who once tried to acquire nuclear
weapons for Osama bin Laden. In 1995, police files show, Darkazanli opened a
joint bank account in Hamburg with Salim, who allegedly specialized in setting
up bin Laden-owned companies in Sudan… At the time of his arrest Salim had
Darkazanli's number programmed into his cell phone.”
Link
From The Associated Press, April 26,
2002:
“Mamoun Darkazanli, a Syrian-born
businessman in Hamburg, described by the Spanish police as "belonging to the
most intimate circle of Mohamed Atta."’
Link
From The Chicago Tribune November 3,
2002:
“Tatex Trading has employed, at various
times in the past 15 years, two Syrian-born German citizens… who are high
on the list of Sept. 11 suspects.”
“Investigators also say Atta himself
worked for a time at Tatex…”
“The origins of Tatex Trading itself
have become of interest to investigators… Tatex investor is Mohamad Majed
Said, a former head of Syria's General Intelligence Directorate…
Investigators say they are frankly puzzled by their discovery of the Said
family's role in Tatex, especially in view of Tatari's [Tatex’s managing
director] reputed membership in the radical Muslim Brotherhood… a senior
German intelligence official said the Syrian government has identified Tatari as
a member.”
Link
From The Washington Post, September 10,
2004:
“The architect of the Sept. 11 strikes,
Khalid Sheik Mohammed, told U.S. interrogators that he was drawn to violent
jihad after joining the Brotherhood in Kuwait at age 16…”
“Brotherhood radicals in Germany
and Spain are suspected of organizing logistical support for the al Qaeda cell
that carried out the attacks…”
Link
Those who read last week’s article
entitled ‘9/11 Conspirators met with Bush Officials after the Attack’ will be
familiar the following two Brotherhood figures.
The first is terrorist
Sami
al-Arian, who incorporated Baraka Group in 2000. It was Baraka Group which
funded the 9/11 hijackers while they were inside the U.S. Al-Arian was also the
leader and founder of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. From The St. Petersburg
Times, February 21, 2003:
“PIJ traces its origins to the Muslim
Brotherhood…”
Link
The
second is Abdulrahman al-Amoudi, who was photographed in Washington D.C.
alongside both the ‘contact person’ for bin Laden and the ‘U.S. contact’ for Atta just months before the attack. From Congressional testimony by Richard
Clarke on October 22, 2003:
“Abdurahman Alamoudi, allegedly [a]
senior figure in the Muslim Brotherhood…”
Link
More Congressional testimony from
Richard Clarke, on October 14, 2003:
“Alamoudi: The operations chief
in the U.S. In 1990 Abdurahman Alamoudi, an emigre from Eritrea of Yemeni
descent and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, set up a political
action organization in Washington called the American Muslim Council (AMC). This
subcommittee heard testimony almost six years ago that the AMC, based at 1212
New York Avenue NW, was inter alia, the "de facto lobbying arm of the
Muslim Brotherhood.’”
Link
It may prove to be a long four years if these types of policy
decisions are the 'mandate' of which the administration has spoken in the days
following the election. May God Bless America. |